Question 1

Why do we use como here instead of que?

Accepted Answer

In English, you might say "the way that they created" or just "the way they created". However, in Portuguese, nouns expressing manner like o modo (the way) or a maneira (the manner) are followed by the relative adverb como. It literally translates to "the way how they created," which sounds strange in English but is the standard way to link these ideas in Portuguese.

Question 2

Could I use em que instead of como in this sentence?

Accepted Answer

Yes, you could absolutely say o modo em que eles criaram (the way in which they created). Both are grammatically correct and mean the same thing, but o modo como is a very common structure that native speakers use constantly in everyday speech.

Question 3

Is it possible to drop the como entirely, like we drop "that" in English?

Accepted Answer

No. In English, we frequently drop relative pronouns, saying "the way they created this" instead of "the way that they created this". In Portuguese, you can never omit these connecting words. You must include como (or em que) to link the noun to the rest of the sentence.

Question 4

Because adoro expresses an emotion, shouldn't criaram be in the subjunctive?

Accepted Answer

That is a great catch! Verbs of emotion do trigger the subjunctive when followed by the conjunction que to introduce a new clause (e.g., Eu adoro que eles criem...). But here, the direct object of your emotion is the noun phrase o modo. The rest of the sentence (como eles criaram...) is just a relative clause describing that noun. Because it refers to a concrete, factual event in the past, it takes the indicative past tense (criaram).

Eu adoro o modo como eles criaram esta coreografia.

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